BusinessWeek.com - Food, drugs, and MBAs

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For most MBA students, the closest they will get to the health-care sector and agriculture during their time at business school will be the hefty checks U.S. schools require for medical insurance and the pizza and subs that fuel all-night assignments.

Because of their ambition and ability—and because of the hefty debts so many rack up during their time on campus—MBAs always like to be at the center of the action. However, according to a professor at the Desautels Faculty of Management at Canada’s McGill University, that center may now be precisely where the neglected arenas of health care and agriculture intersect.

The devil is, of course, in the details, and there is a lot of it to digest, but the essence of professor Laurette Dubé’s thesis seems to be twofold. While food production has risen dramatically over the past 50 years, this is not necessarily benefiting the agriculturally based communities that make up large parts of the developing world. And we are producing more and more foodstuffs that are contributing to epidemics of potentially avoidable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular breakdown, and cancer.